


pushed up the window to kiss you off

by aknightley



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dark Thoughts, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Season 4 Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13673571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aknightley/pseuds/aknightley
Summary: A series of conversations between Keith and Lance when they're apart but together, and the effects unrelenting thoughts can have on a very confused boy.The worst part of deciding to leave had been telling Lance his plans -- no, the worst part had been that Lance had understood.





	pushed up the window to kiss you off

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for writing yet another fic based on s4 hhhhh for some reason when my brain was finally ready to let go of its writer's block, this is what happened, even though I have many, MANY other things I should be working on. Consider this a love letter to the care and consideration I hope Keith gets in season 5. Thanks to Zee for reading over this for me!
> 
> Title comes from Fall Out Boy's song, "I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears, and None on My Fingers."

“I just want you to be happy, Keith.”

 

.

 

It’s quiet as he makes his way down the long and empty hallway.

It’s easier to get out of the Galra ship than it had been to infiltrate it -- that’s probably helped by the fact that he’d incapacitated all of the guards in this sector of the ship on his way in, and walking past their unconscious bodies is no trouble at all.

Keith clutches the data drive in his palm just to confirm that he really has it, then tucks it away into his utility belt for safe keeping. Kolivan is waiting for him in a small pod just outside of the loading bay, tucked out of sight against the belly of the massive ship they’ve managed to break into. He just has to --

An alarm starts ringing throughout the ship, red lights flashing from every corner. The sound of raised voices and heavy footsteps starts up almost immediately, and all of them sound like they’re getting closer to him.

“Shit,” Keith mutters, making sure his hood and mask are secure before he starts sprinting towards the hangar, trying to stay as quiet as possible. He doesn’t know what tripped the alarm -- whether someone found one of the bodies littered throughout the ship, or if Absol, his fellow Blade searching the security wing of the ship, has been caught. He can’t really afford to stop and figure it out, though, not when the sound of Galra voices grows louder with every step he takes.

He flicks his wrist and his knife slides into his waiting palm, pressed warm and steady against his pulse as he eases his way around corners and along passageways. He’d prefer to keep from engaging in combat, since it will only slow him down, but he’d rather be prepared than not.

The hangar he’d entered through is already more heavily guarded than before, which makes sense -- it’s the easiest way in and and out of the ship (unless he makes his own exit, which is tempting but would take time he doesn’t have), and they have to suspect whoever broke in is now trying to break out. A guard is stationed at the opening of the initial airlock, rifle held loosely in his hands. A group of Galra soldiers approach the airlock, clearly preparing to enter, and Keith makes a split second decision; he sucks in a breath, activates a timer on his heads up display, and presses a button located on the side of his mask.

His suit goes glossy and then invisible -- it’s a useful cloaking device, but it only lasts for a couple of minutes, and close scrutiny would be the death of him in such an enclosed space, so he keeps as quiet as he can and ducks into the airlock with them, trying to remain as still as possible, pressed into the corner as far away from the soldiers as he can get.

The tallest one shifts a little to his left while the chamber closes slowly behind them, then mutters, “They saw the intruder in the eastern wing. Orders are to capture alive if possible, but if not, shoot to kill.”

“What did they get?” the second one asks. He has a long, wicked looking sword sheathed at his back to go with the rifle in his hands; Keith has to step backwards to avoid bumping into the handle when the Galra turns slightly to face his companion.

“Trade routes for quintessence supplies, plus something else the higher ups won’t tell us lowly peons about. Raxol thinks it’s something to do with some kind of secret weaponry they’ve been working on.”

Keith glances down at his hip, where the data drive is concealed. He’d swiped the whole drive the information about quintessence had been on without bothering to check what else was on there, but information about a weapon -- that could prove useful for the Coalition.

The door in front of them finally grinds all the way open, and the soldiers step through into the hangar. There are dozens of Galra here, walking in rotations around the room and conferring with one another. Keith quickly slips away from the group he’d been standing with and manages to get behind a pallet of crates just as the invisibility wears off, ducking low and taking a moment to assess the situation.

Distractingly, a message starts to flash on the bottom of his mask’s display, scripted in bright red letters: RENDEZVOUS IN FIVE MINUTES FOR EXTRACTION -- IF NOT PRESENT EXTRACTION WILL BE UP TO INDIVIDUAL’S DISCRETION.

In other words, Keith surmises, be at the ship in five minutes or be left behind. Fantastic. There were very few escape pods on this ship, and they would be just as heavily guarded as this hangar. He could only hope that the other Blade members had already gotten out, because he knew by know that Kolivan was as good as his word. The mission and their secrecy were more important than any one member.

Fleetingly, he wonders if Red would still come for him if he really was truly in danger, the way she used to -- but he pushes the thought out of his head roughly, feeling bitterly resentful of himself for even thinking it. She’s Lance’s lion now, they’d agreed on that. It had been his choice to leave.

Shaking his head, Keith gives the towering pile of crates in front of him a quick once over, then stealthily begins scaling them, pausing every time a Galra soldier comes too close. A helpful timer appears at the corner of his display, keeping track of how long he has left, but he puts the slowly decreasing number out of his mind and instead focuses on staying out of sight.

The hangar luckily has beams running all along the ceiling, and he’s pretty sure the dark gloom of the shadows and his suit will shield him from view -- he just needs to get all the way up there undetected. From there he can make his way across the room and get out of the airlock when everyone was distracted.

Speaking of which.

He reaches into one of his belt pockets, pinching his fingers carefully around a small round object. It looked innocuous enough, smooth silver and perfectly spherical, but a careful press to the top and bottom of it at once starts a flashing red ring of light around the middle, the glow dim enough he isn’t worried about it being spotted right away. He sets it carefully at the base of the container he’s perched next to, careful to tuck it so it won’t roll away, then continues his ascent.

The countdown reads three minutes and twelve seconds left.

As time goes on, the soldiers patrolling start to slow a little, a few of them with obviously disgruntled features, and several speak in hushed tones into communicators attached to their wrists. After what seemed like too long to be safe, Keith finally reaches a high enough point that he can jump up to the beams above -- but he’s going to be completely visible until he pulls himself up all the way.

His muscles are straining with tension from climbing, and from the pressure of doing so while attempting to be completely silent. He resolutely ignores the sweat beading at his temples and dampening the hair at the base of his neck. One minute and forty-five seconds left. Keith rocks back onto his heels, keeping an eye on the soldiers, then jumps as hard and as high as he can.

He almost misses the beam -- it’s farther away than it had looked, and his legs are tired from all of the climbing he’s already done, but his gloves catch hold and lock on thanks to the grips build into them. He doesn’t waste time being relieved -- he swings his legs up and around, flipping his upper torso over the beam and quickly jumping to his feet as soon as he gets them underneath himself, pushing his body back into the shadows.

He holds his breath, waiting, but there’s no outcry -- no one says anything.

It’s easier to make his way along the criss-crossing beams than he expected. He makes it across the room in twenty seconds flat, and his countdown flashes a perfect 1:00 MINUTE REMAINING just as he reaches the far wall, closest to the giant airlock that releases into space.

Not a lot of time, but enough. Keith grits his teeth, closes his eyes and thinks, very quickly and very intently, about blue eyes and a warm smile.

He palms a small silver remote from his belt and presses the single button on it.

An explosion rocks the far side of the room where he’d placed the bomb earlier, larger and more fiery than such a small device should be able to produce. Keith wastes no time watching the Galra soldiers react with surprised shouts as a furious cacophony of noise rises; he drops from the beam he’d been perched on to fall directly on top of the closest Galra soldier, relishing the thudding sound his head makes when it bangs off of the control panel next to the door. A few other Galra notice him immediately, but thankfully the majority of the attention in the room is on the fire spreading around the cargo on the other side of the hangar -- a few helpful explosions go off as the weaponry in the crates catch fire, causing more confusion.

Keith draws his knife just as the first Galra reaches him, effortlessly sidestepping the swipe he makes and reaching out with his free hand to the control panel, keying in the release code for the airlock. All the Blade were required to know how to operate Galra tech and military vehicles, something Keith finds himself immensely grateful for as the airlock begins to flash red around its circumference, an alarm blaring a warning.

“You little shit,” the soldier hisses, thrusting his sword at Keith, who drops below the strike and then scuttles backwards, bracing himself against a nearby crate. The alarm and lights draw the attention of the Galra who aren’t preoccupied with the fires, and laser fire begins raining down upon him almost immediately. The airlock hisses as the locks release.

0:29 SECONDS, his timer reminds him.

The entire room shifts as the unexpected lifting of the antigravity sends several Galra spinning into the air -- the boxes, loaded onto magnetized pallets, stay in place, so Keith takes advantage of the firm base at his back and puts his feet against the box he’s pressed against, using it to launch himself past the Galra soldier (who swings again at him, and sends himself into a spiral as a result) and towards the yawning opening of the airlock, where space is finally visible through the gaping teeth of the door.

More laser fire follows him, as does the sound of frustrated, panicked shouting. He spares a grin when nothing connects, and activates the small thrusters on the soles of his feet to steer himself down and under the Galra battleship. A small, dark object attached to the base of the hull detaches itself and moves his way, a small opening appearing as soon as he’s close enough. He tumbles inside, doesn’t bother stopping to readjust, just grabs onto the first solid thing he can and holds on. The timer hits zero.

“Kicking into high as soon as we’re clear,” Absol says, and Keith grits his teeth and bears down as the small ship hurtles away from the Galra cruiser, narrowly avoiding the scattered cannon fire aimed their way. As soon as they’re outside of range, the whole ship shudders violently and then warps away, leaving Keith feeling strangely compressed. He closes his eyes until the feeling stops, the ship dropping into normal speed as they clear some arbitrary distance away that Kolivan must feel is safe enough. Then the ship hums quietly, the only sound the hushed voices in the cockpit.

He gives himself a moment and thinks, _I made it. Again._ Each time feels more and more like a miracle.

He gets to his feet slowly, rebalancing himself, then lets his Blade mask shimmer away into nothingness. His hair tumbles loose, the ends still damp with sweat, and he sucks in a breath of fresh air -- or at least air that was fresher than what his suit had been filtering.

“Was your mission successful?”

Kolivan steps through the doorway from the cockpit, towering over him with a serious and grim expression on his face. It’s a familiar sight at this point. It was his usual first question after a mission, but it still unnerves Keith sometimes, how heavy he looks, how even the wildest and most daring successes feel muted. Wordlessly, Keith reaches into his belt and pulls the drive out, handing it to him.

“Nice job!” Absol calls from the pilot seat, flashing a smile at him. Absol is one of the only friendly members of the Blade Keith has seen -- there’s always a rotating schedule of who is assigned to missions, each based on parameters only Kolivan seems to know. Keith has been tasked with his fair share of them, but he knows there’s been many missions without him too -- every time they meet at the base, there’s always a missing face, someone lost in the line of duty.

“The info about the quintessence is on there, but I overheard a couple of guards saying it might have something about a weapon too.” Keith tugs his hood down, glancing outside the closest window at the starlight streaking past them. “How much longer until we get back to base?”

“A few hours,” Absol says absently.

“I will commence sending a copy of the data to our intelligence crew immediately just in case we are intercepted,” Kolivan tells them shortly, and then walks quietly past Keith into the rear of the ship, which is sectioned into a small computer room, a med bay, and two small rooms with bunks.

“Always a pleasure,” Keith mutters as soon as he’s sure Kolivan is far enough away. Up front, Absol snorts and glances back at him, his bright yellow eyes creased with amusement.

“He’s always been like that. Thinks about the worst case scenario and then tries to prepare for it _and_ something even worse. He’s a careful kind of person. Although he _has_ been a bit more proactive since your princess chewed him out and called him a coward. Wish I could’ve seen that.”

Keith smiles, although it feels more like a smirk. “She’s good at, uh, inspiring people.”

Absol snorts again. “If that’s what you wanna call it. It was less inspirational, more scolding, from what I heard.”  

“She can do both,” Keith says. Thinking of his teammates strikes the same bittersweet cord in his chest, like being pricked in the heart by a dull blade. That feeling pushes him to say, “Hey, I’m gonna, um. Check in with my old crew really quick.” He tries not to sound nervous, like a kid lying to sneak out of curfew. It’s not a lie. Not technically. “Make sure they’re on track with the Coalition.”

“Sounds good,” Absol says. “All clear up here for now on the scanners. We’ll be back to base in no time.”

“Cool,” Keith says, a little awkwardly, then heads into the back, stealing away into one of the rooms as quietly as he can. He glances at the computer room with the door firmly shut, well aware that Kolivan probably wouldn’t approve of what he’s about to do.

He lets himself flop onto the lower bunk in the small room, sighing as his muscles slowly release -- all of the stress of the mission, crowding the base of his skull and the span of his shoulders, eases just a little. He gives himself just a moment to decompress, to take all of the fear he’d pushed aside in favor of focusing on the mission and let it just -- flow throughout him and disappear. He doesn’t want anything distracting him when he makes this call. He wants his attention to be on the person he’s talking with, which means letting himself shake, just a little, curled up on this gray little bed in this gray little room. It means taking a deep breath, in and out, letting himself unclench his fists. It means sitting up and rubbing determinedly at his eyes, practicing a smile in the little mirror hanging from the wall, and then letting go of everything.

It only takes a few taps at the little communicator to place the call -- and it only rings twice before it connects.

“Lance,” Keith says, smiling gently. His lingering stress collapses a little more at the sight of him, like he’s taken a sip of hot tea, warming himself from the inside out.

Lance is laying in bed too, except it looks like he was definitely asleep just a few moments ago. His hair is curled at the ends, ruffled and sticking up all over the place, and he still has one hand fisted over his right eye, rubbing at it sleepily.

“Sorry, I keep forgetting about the time difference,” Keith says, wincing guiltily. Lance, now performing as the Red Paladin, is just as busy as he is, if not more -- he has to deal with diplomacy on top of missions. He probably needs all the sleep he can get. But Lance just makes a dismissive noise and shakes his head, before finally lowering his hand and blinking at Keith, a lazy smile curving his mouth.

“Don’t apologize, I don’t care. I’m just glad I remembered to set your ringtone loud enough to wake myself up.” A yawn creases his face, just briefly, and then he pulls himself together and sits up straight, his eyes bright and curious. “How did it go?”

“Good,” Keith says, ignoring the part where he had to set off a bomb and dive out of an open airlock to escape. “Got the intel to Kolivan. He’s gonna send it to the base, and from there maybe it can go through to Pidge and Hunk. I think there’s some good stuff on there.”

“Look at you,” Lance says, his smile growing deeper, warmer, with just a hint of teasing. “My brave hero.”

“Lance,” Keith says, rolling his eyes and feeling his cheeks heat just a little.

“Babe, you’re my secret spy boyfriend who just ran a mission that gave us top secret intel on our enemies. I’m allowed to call you a brave hero. Oh, look, I did it again.” Lance grins cheekily, ignoring Keith’s disbelieving huff of air.

“You’re ridiculous,” Keith says, unsurprised when it comes out embarrassingly fond.

“I’m always like this,” Lance says, raising his brows. “I would think you’d be used to it.”

“More ridiculous than usual,” Keith counters, which makes Lance laugh and then go a little solemn. His eyes, so bright blue, even in the shadowy darkness of his bed late at night, dim.

“I guess it’s cause I miss you so much,” he says quietly. Keith’s heart, so light just moments ago, drops heavily and painfully to his stomach. Lance makes a face and then sighs. “Sorry,” he says, his hand reaching up to push some of his hair off of his forehead. He sounds frustrated. “ I just woke up, I wasn’t -- I didn’t mean to sound so--”

“I miss you too,” Keith interrupts softly. The truth of it sits heavy on his chest, making him ache all over. His voice is rough with emotion, which embarrasses him enough that he clears his throat. “You know that I miss you.”

Lance sucks in a breath, and his eyes cast down at his hands. His attempt at a wobbly smile falls just a little short, but it still makes Keith’s stomach flip flop.

“I know we said we wouldn’t -- that the only way it would be bearable would be to not talk about -- it’s just harder than I thought, I guess,” Lance murmurs.

“I know,” Keith says quietly. He closes his eyes and wishes, not for the first time, that he could change so many things -- the circumstances that have led him here, millions of miles away from the person he cares about most, are so circuitous that he doesn’t know where to even begin to fix them. There’s no going back to the way things were. He doesn’t belong where he was anymore. He understands that now, that he was the jagged piece in an otherwise smooth-edged puzzle, that he was holding them all back.

He doesn’t know anything about his mother, not really -- he has vague memories of big, warm hands, of the scent of leather and spice, but nothing concrete. But she’d been part of the Blade, had devoted at least part of her life to them -- maybe had even lost her life for them. It feels fitting that he would follow in her footsteps, could find a place for himself where she’d once been, after going for so long not knowing who he really was. It’s at least something for him to hold onto, to strive towards. It makes him feel useful, for _once,_ like he’s making a difference. It’s not being the Red Paladin -- it’s lonely and dangerous, and sometimes he wants to kick Kolivan in the face -- but it’s something. It gives him a purpose. He wants to -- he _needs_ to do it.

But leaving the others -- leaving _Lance,_ especially when they’d only officially been together for a few months? It was weighing on him more heavily than he’d expected. He hadn’t known how desperately attached he’d become, how much he relied on Hunk’s steady voice and unrestrained laughter, Allura’s firm focus and cheerful hope, Pidge’s dry quips and unrelenting drive, Coran’s comforting smile and ridiculous jokes -- on Shiro’s determined support and familiar grin, the same shoulder he’d had to lean on for years when he was low.

He hadn’t realized how much he needed Lance’s warm embrace, the sound of whispered conversation over communicators in the middle of the night, fingertips on the back of his neck as they passed each other in the hall, kisses stolen in shadowy alcoves all over the castle while they laughed into each other’s mouths, sharing of all of the things they wanted to do together.

(Keith wants to drive Lance through the desert at night with the moon shining above them, the wind whipping their hair as they fly to wherever they want to go, no destinations or missions to hold them back; Lance wants to bring Keith home to his mother, to bask in the sun by the sea with his family close by, showing Keith all of the secret grottos and coastlines he’d found growing up; Keith wants to kiss Lance under every new sky in every new planet they find themselves in, to learn the shape and sound of him over and over; Lance wants to kiss Keith everywhere and anywhere else they might be and learn it all again.)

The worst part of deciding to leave had been telling Lance his plans -- no, the worst part had been that Lance had _understood._ The worst part had been watching Lance struggle with himself visibly, to see the misery well deep and heavy in his eyes, and then listen to him say, “If that’s what you need to do, then I get it.” When Keith had touched his cheek, feeling the breath caught painfully in his own chest, Lance had said, “I don’t want you to be unhappy here, Keith. That’d be worse, knowing that you were miserable with us. I promise, I’m okay.” He’d pressed his hand over Keith’s, cupping it to his cheek. His mouth had been a gentle, hesitant curve.  

He was too good for Keith. He’d always known it, deep down, but that had made it painfully and unequivocally clear. Sometimes he--

“ _PBTHHBBTTT_.”

Keith’s pulled from his thoughts by Lance blowing a raspberry, a loud sputtering sound completely takes him by surprise, making him jolt abruptly.

“Don’t get all emo on me, babe,” Lance says, smiling at him innocently. He tilts his head, and Keith can tell he’s doing his best to push the conversation in a lighter direction, that he’s trying to make this bearable for both of them. The sudden rush of affection he feels for Lance nearly bowls him over, spreading through his lungs and ribcage -- he can barely even breathe around it.

With that feeling held deep in his chest, it’s easier than he expected to push aside his dark thoughts, to grin at his boyfriend and say, only a little awkwardly, “I’m not the one who had the emo swoop when I was in middle school.”

Lance squawks, flushing pink -- it’s visible even in the dim lighting of his room, spread across the bridge of his nose all along his freckles. “You said you wouldn’t ever bring that up! I showed you those pictures in full confidence, Keith!”

“I thought you were cute,” Keith says, relishing the way Lance’s blush deepens. He makes a protesting noise and covers half of the screen so that Keith can only barely see him, mumbling something incomprehensible. Keith huffs out a laugh, leaning back against the bulwark of the ship behind him. “What, so you get to be embarrassing but I can’t?”

“Those are the rules, yes,” Lance says, muffled, as if he’s got his other hand over his face. “In fact, there’s an entire extensive list of them that you’re required to follow from now on so I don’t _die_ when we talk. I’ll make a copy of the whole thing and send them to you so you can memorize them.”

“Sure, because I always follow the rules,” Keith says wryly. That makes Lance snort out a laugh and finally uncover the screen, peering out at him. His cheeks are still red, but he’s grinning.

“Okay, point taken,” Lance says, smirking at him. “I forgot you’re our resident bad boy -- don’t know how, with your leather jackets and your motorcycle hover and your fingerless gloves, but maybe it’s cause you’re rocking the hoodie aesthetic now.”

“You don’t like the suit?” Keith asks, tugging at the hood tucked around his neck. He likes the suit -- the mask is a little difficult to get used to, but it’s made for flexibility and quick movement, unlike the somewhat bulky paladin armor, and he blends in easily when spying.

Lance makes a coughing noise, like something is stuck in his throat, then shrugs his shoulders. “It’s okay,” he says nonchalantly, but Keith can see he’s flushing all over again. It makes him grin, just a little; after going so long getting distracted by every single thing Lance did (once Keith had walked into a wall watching Lance stretch up on his tiptoes to clean one of the healing pods), it felt good to make _Lance_ a little flustered.

“Are you okay?” he asks, doing his best to look innocent. “You look kind of flushed. You’re not getting sick, are you?”

Lance makes a face at him, then blows another raspberry. Keith laughs at that, and at Lance’s petulant expression. “Don’t make fun of me for thinking you look good in dark colors or I’ll start talking about the color of your eyes again,” Lance warns him, and Keith feels his own face heat up.

“Fine,” he says quickly, “Truce.”

Lance grins, looking a little rueful. “We’re really bad at this, aren’t we?”

Keith shrugs, picking a little at a stray thread on the bedding beneath him, unable to meet Lance’s gaze. “It’s my first time dating anyone, but I think it’s going pretty good.”

“Pretty good, huh,” Lance says, clearly amused. “That’s a ringing endorsement.”

Keith makes a face, unsure of how to properly explain himself. “You know what I mean. It’s just -- I’ve -- I liked you for so long, you know? And all I ever really wanted was to be with you, in whatever way you’d let me. Teammate, or friend, or -- whatever you wanted, I wanted to be there. So the fact that we’re actually together, it’s -- that’s enough for me.” He clears his throat, embarrassed all over again. “I don’t care that we’re still figuring it out, because I get to figure it out with you.”

This time the quiet stretches out only for a moment before Lance says, voice soft and fond, “You always do this kind of thing when I’m not able to kiss you.”

“I do not,” Keith protests, looking back up at him. Lance’s eyes are warm and deep blue; Keith has seen those eyes a hundred thousand times, but the obvious affection in them still sends a thrill through his stomach. “What does that even mean?”

“A week ago you went on and on about how you miss wearing my shirts because they smell nice, and I still haven’t been able to kiss you for that. Now you say all this?” Lance shakes his head in faux-disappointment. “This just means the next time I see you we’re gonna have to kiss for like, an hour.”

Keith bursts out laughing. “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me,” he says, smirking. “Maybe it was my plan all along.”

“What _is_ Kolivan teaching you guys?” Lance teases him, propping his chin up on his crossed fingers and fluttering his lashes coyly. “Secret spy techniques? Am I going to have to step up my--”

There’s a knock on the door of the room, and Keith startles into silence -- so does Lance, the laughter falling off of his face quickly.

“Keith,” Kolivan says, as if they’d summoned him by mentioning him by name. Keith sighs and looks down at his pad, at Lance, who stares back at him with those wide blue eyes. “We need to discuss the mission properly before we get back.”

“Right,” Keith mutters. Lance gives him a sympathetic look. “I’ll be there in a moment,” he calls, loud enough to pierce the door. There’s a pause, and then Kolivan clears his throat.

“Tell the Blue Paladin to get his rest,” he says meaningfully. The two of them share a wince, but Keith waits until the telltale sounds of Kolivan moving to the front of the ship fade before he says, “Shit.”

“I didn’t know he knew about us,” Lance says, frowning.

“I didn’t tell him,” Keith replies, sending his own frown up at the door. It was disconcerting for several reasons: for one, Keith didn’t really care for Kolivan digging around in his personal business. He might be the leader of the Blade of Marmora, but Keith’s personal life had no bearing on their missions. Secondly, though, _no one_ was supposed to know about them yet -- they’d agreed that they wanted to keep their relationship between the two of them until things were more settled with the team; privately, though, Keith liked having the secret, at least for now. It felt like something intimate, something their own, a secret held neatly between his hands and cupped close to his chest for safekeeping.

“Guess he _is_ leader of an organization of alien spies,” Lance concedes, sighing. He gives Keith a rueful smile, looking suddenly as tired as he must feel. “I’ll call you later, okay? You don’t have a mission right away, right?”

“Not that I know of,” Keith says carefully, because there have been several missions thrust upon him at the last moment, and Lance has been known to get a little panicky over Keith not picking up a call. “Are you guys busy tomorrow?”

“We’ve got rehearsals, I think,” Lance says, smothering a yawn, as if all of his tiredness had caught up to him at once. He slumps back against the pillow behind him and offers Keith a smile. “I’ll give Red a kiss for you.”

Keith’s stomach twists a little, thinking of Red -- thinking of Red and Lance together, two of the most important beings in the universe to him, keeping each other safe in his absence. He wishes, briefly but with so much intensity it makes him a little dizzy, that he could be there with them again.

Then the moment passes, and he remembers how much good he’s doing here, with the Blade. The intel he’d only just passed on could be a major key factor in winning the war -- he reminds himself to focus on that.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Keith promises. “Goodnight. Take care, okay?”

“I will, sweetheart,” Lance replies softly. He presses two fingertips to his lips, then reaches out, clearly tapping the screen in front of him where Keith’s image is. Keith mimics the gesture -- it’s one they’ve taken to doing at the end of their calls. It’s cheesy, of course, and Keith almost always feels a little strange doing it, but it always sends a frisson of warmth through him when Lance smiles at him brightly. “Talk later.”

He still has his fingers pressed over Lance’s mouth when the call ends.

 

.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay to be on a call with me right now?”

“Babe, please. I’m an expert, I think I can handle -- oh, shit, hang on, there’s a ship right behind my--”

“Lance--”

“We’re good, we’re fine, it’s okay! Red’s keeping an eye on things. Easy peasy.”

“I can call some other time, Lance.”

“It’s been three days since we’ve had time to talk, Keith, we’re doing this -- WHOA SHIT -- so stop worrying about it. You sound like Shiro.”

“Gross, don’t say that ever again.”

“What, are you saying you don’t want to sound like an eighty year old man in your mid twenties -- ah, hold on -- wait just a--”

“Are you flying upside down right now? Wait, was that _an explosion?_ ”

“Sweetheart, it’s fine, it was an explosion I made.”

“I feel much better.”

“Knew you would. So how did the mission go?”

“We had to pull out early. Our undercover guy was almost discovered. Kolivan is sending me and one other person back in a few days, so hopefully we can break out that scientist.”

“So all that time you were gone -- for nothing? I would’ve been so -- fuck, there’s a few ships right on my ass, hang on.”

“Don’t scratch Red’s paint.”

“Oh, ha ha, says the one who rode her through an asteroid field and tried to 1v1 Zarkon.”

“She went along with it!”

“Sure thing, babe. Ah, I think that was the last of them, awesome. Another day, another defenseless city saved by yours truly.”

“Does this mean we can have a conversation like normal people now?”

“Normal people? Keith, we’re paladins of Voltron, fighting a war in space millions of miles away from our planet. Normal left the building a long time ago.”

 

.

 

Keith sprawls in bed, twirling his knife above his head. His thoughts are scattered, spinning just as quickly as the blade in his fingers, to the point that he makes himself stop and take a deep breath just to keep from getting a headache.

The mission last night had gone wrong. Another member of the Blade was gone -- he’d been pinned down and almost captured, and had bitten into a poison capsule kept in a hidden pocket in his suit to keep from being a liability to the organization. Kolivan had taken his loss with only a momentary pause -- then he’d told all of them to prepare for a debriefing and had left.

Keith’s known about the pill the whole time, since it’s included in all of their suits as standard gear, but he’s never really thought about it before. The other members who have died -- there’s been four in total, including this one, since they’ve started running these more dangerous missions -- had been killed outright by the Galra, either shot or stabbed or blown up. Those had been difficult to deal with; Keith had thrown up after the first one,

(her name had been Lilix, and she’d patted Keith’s head and called him shortie and promised to go easy on him in a sparring match after the mission, and she’d been shot in the head just before Keith had rounded the corner to try and come to her aid; he’d seen the blood before the crack of the rifle had even registered, and his stomach had curdled from the inside out as she’d slid down the wall)

had called Lance with his face pale and drawn, still curled up in the tiny bathroom of the ship he’d been on, and had demanded Lance talk about something, anything that was good.

Lance had looked at him for a long moment, mouth pressed into a thin line, and then had told him the story of the time he’d taken his sisters down to the beach and they’d discovered buried treasure -- a diamond ring someone had lost in the sand and they’d dug up while building a sandcastle. They’d been in awe, and had spent the next three days tirelessly digging around in the same area, hoping to find more riches.

They’d only found a few coins, a tin can that had once held, weirdly, green beans, and a glass soda bottle. But because they stayed there for so long, they were there when a woman with dark skin and curly hair had come down to the beach, her mouth twisted anxiously, and began to cast her gaze around the sand, sometimes dropping to her knees and digging halfheartedly. They realized quickly that the fantasy they’d made up (that the ring belonged to a famous actress from America who’d thrown the ring away in a fit of pique because it didn’t match her bathing suit) was completely wrong -- it clearly belonged to this worried woman.

They’d approached her and given back the ring, and she’d dropped to her knees and cried gratefully. She was on her honeymoon, she’d said, and she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if she’d never found it. She’d bought them as much ice cream as they could eat at the boardwalk shop, and had hugged all of them so hard Lance’s ribs had ached a little. When she left to go back to her hotel, she’d been smiling so much that Lance thought her cheeks must hurt.

It had been the first time he’d helped a stranger like that, and it had made him feel -- good. Proud of himself. It was then that he’d known that he wanted to be the kind of person who did that all the time. Who saved people from problems, big or small. A knight in shining armor.

He said all of this while Keith listened quietly, focusing on the words while he breathed slowly through in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to put Lilix’s choked gasp out of his mind forever.

Lance had spent the rest of the night talking quietly to Keith, telling him more stories or just whispering words of comfort. Keith had passed out from exhaustion and illness sometime in the early morning, and woke up to the sounds of Lance snoring through the still connected call.

Keith had called him again after the second time someone had died, but not the third, and he doesn’t know if he wants to now. He doesn’t want to keep dragging Lance into the worst parts of this job. He doesn’t want to keep lingering on it himself.

But this one is sticking with him -- it’s the first time he’s seen someone use one of those pills, the first time someone has died of their own volition in front of him. It makes something dry stick in the back of his throat, like he’s swallowed sand or gravel.

Death is not a new concept to Keith -- he’s thought he might die so many times by now that it scarcely surprises him when he narrowly escapes its clutches. Even before Voltron, pilots, especially fighter class pilots, were made to understand just how dangerous their jobs could be. Every time he flew a ship, or even flew Red, he knew that he might lose control, that he might be shot down, that something could go wrong. Once, when he was in the desert, his motorcycle hover had stalled in the middle of a drop over the side of a canyon, and only his frantic throttling had saved him from crashing into the hard rock at the bottom.  

Keith is no stranger to death, but he’s always assumed it would come for him -- he’s never thought about embracing it himself.

A ringing noise interrupts his thoughts, drawing his attention to the little tablet laying on the bed next to him. It’s Lance, and Keith feels a bolt of unease dart through him at the prospect of talking to him when his feelings are so jumbled. But he can’t ignore Lance -- and moreover, part of him does want to see him, to have his enthusiastic chattering smooth over the jagged edges of tension Keith can feel all along his spine. A short war wages in his head, before he picks up the tablet and presses a button.

Lance has a towel wrapped around his head, lounging back in a chair with a light green face mask already on. His eyes go wide and pleased when Keith finally answers, a smile breaking across his face and creasing the mask.

“Hey babe!” he chirps, flashing a peace sign. “Man, it was such a long day today, we had to do like, six supply runs, and we -- are you okay?”

The question catches him by surprise -- he’d been watching Lance’s mouth move without really processing what he was saying, focusing in on the sound of his voice and the curve of his lips. “What?” Keith asks, blinking.

“You look kind of -- did something happen?” Lance asks, brow furrowing. He sits up straighter in his chair, eyes sharp. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Lance,” Keith says, baffled. He resists the urge to check his face in a mirror and make sure it doesn’t say ‘just saw someone die a few hours ago’ on his forehead. “I just had a long day too, I guess,” he concedes, because Lance is still squinting at him suspiciously.

“This isn’t like that time you had a broken arm and tried to keep it out of frame, is it?” Lance persists, peering closely at him. “Keith, you promised--”

“I’m really okay, Lance,” Keith says, waving both of his hands around for emphasis so that Lance can see they’re not injured. “Really. It... was just a long day.”

There must be something bitter or dull in the tone of his voice, because Lance quiets and then looks at him for a moment, his mouth turned down. He sighs, and it sounds like the long, ragged sigh of someone resigned.

“Oh,” Lance murmurs. “One of those days, huh.”

Keith makes a noise, either a confirmation or a sigh, and leans back against the wall behind him. He wishes he could reach out and smooth the frown away from Lance’s mouth, could tell him not to think about Keith and all of his fucked up issues and the way he can’t deal with the realities of the war they’re all fighting. Everyone else handles it -- everyone else knows what they’re doing, but Keith can’t seem to settle his thoughts, so he settles instead for distracting Lance. “Tell me about the supply runs. Was it anything interesting?”

Lance watches him a moment longer, then quirks his mouth up into a half-smile. “Building supplies for Beta Revax. They’re working on setting up real homes on the new planet we found for refugees, not just the temporary ones we’ve had set up. They’re gonna be able to start living normal lives again.”

Keith returns the smile, genuinely pleased. “That’s awesome. I know Allura was unhappy with the shelters we’d put up there. So I guess now those people will be able to move forward with their lives.”

“She’s pretty thrilled,” Lance agrees, settling down against his chair. “Didn’t even complain when we had to move the drops like, five times because no one could be sure where the building was going to start.”

“So what’s the next step?”

“Getting down to the actual building, making sure there’s infrastructure in place to maintain it, putting the right leaders in charge, and then, I’m thinking a _massive_ parade.”

“You and parades,” Keith murmurs, amusement stifling the worry still banked in the back of his mind. Lance smiles at him, like he knows what he’s thinking and Keith swallows hard, knowing, _knowing_ that Lance is being flippant just to make him feel better.

“Hey, they’re a good old fashioned time, babe. You have to promise to be there,” Lance says, grinning.

Keith presses two fingers to his lips and then to Lance’s image on the screen. Lance’s smile softens, becomes more genuine. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Keith replies.

 

.

 

“I know it’s late, I’m sorry.”

“Lance, I told you, it’s fine. Are you alright?”

“I just -- it was that dream again. It’s stupid, I keep telling myself that--”

“It’s not stupid, stop it… did you want to talk about it? I -- I know you miss them.”

“What’s the point? It’s the same every time, Keith, I just -- I’m so scared that one day I’ll wake up and it’ll be true, and--”

“Nothing’s going to happen to Earth, Lance. You know we won’t let it.”

“Ha. Right. Except we’re so far _away,_ Keith, and we’re focused on all these other little things -- and even if nothing happens because of the Galra, who knows what could be happening _on_ Earth. My mom--”

“Lance, come on. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“It runs in the family, and I just keep thinking, what if I’m not there, she was already so worried about it, what if she actually gets diagnosed and I’m not there to help, my sisters and my _dad,_ they don’t even know I’m alive -- oh god--”

“Lance. Shh, calm down.”

“I can’t--”

“Shh…”

“Keith, I can’t--”

“You can breathe, I promise you.”

“...can’t...”

“Lance. Do you remember that time we were on the observation deck, that night after Shiro came back? You let me look out at the stars and just sit there for a while, and you held me from behind. You kept telling me stories about you and Hunk at the Garrison.”

“I…I...”

“You don’t have to talk, Lance, you can just breathe. I just -- I know how hard it is, sometimes, to find the right words, or that sometimes the words don’t seem to matter. I’m not as good at this as you, I know. But you can -- you can let me do the talking, and you just breathe, okay?”

“...”

“Okay. Good. Deep breaths. Uh -- I -- shit. Don’t laugh at me, I’m trying. Uhh -- oh, I accidentally kicked Kolivan in the butt yesterday. I -- Lance, don’t _laugh_ \-- we were doing group combat training and he didn’t get out of the way in time, and it was -- okay, it was pretty funny. He didn’t fall over but he did stumble. One of the other Blade members basically asphyxiated trying not to laugh. Kind of sounded like Hunk that one time Pidge didn’t realize she had toilet paper stuck to her feet. Anyways, after that, I…”

 

.

 

Hunk squints, his arms crossed tightly. "Are you sure?" he asks dubiously, leaning closer as if that will make it easier to tell if Keith is lying. He and the rest of team Voltron are crowded around in front of the screen in the control room; the rest of them, including Lance, are all smiling while Hunk interrogates him. It's a rare moment when their schedules align, when Keith has permission to openly talk to the others -- Kolivan is busy with another mission, and Keith is stuck at base, waiting for the next one to roll around.

"Yes, Hunk," Keith replies, smiling, "I promise they're feeding me enough. And Kolivan did pass on the box you sent, too. I had to fight a couple of people to keep them from stealing the little chocolate things you put in there."

"Good," Hunk says, satisfied. "I made those especially for you."

"Did you get the charts I sent?" Pidge asks, bouncing up and down on the heels of her feet to draw attention to herself. 

"I'm gonna need you or Hunk to walk me through it, but yeah," Keith says, grinning. "I definitely wanna try some of the mods you suggested for the suit, especially if you can get the invisibility to last longer."

"Piece of cake," Pidge says nonchalantly, adjusting her glasses. She glances sideways, a smirk curling her lips. "As long as you actually  _listen."_

"Hey," Lance says mildly, "You know I'm not a tools guys."

"You handed me the same screwdriver three times," Pidge says, exasperated but amused.

"I was checking to make sure  _you_ were sure about what you needed," Lance explains blithely, and the others burst into laughter. Keith watches them grinning and teasing each other, something hot and tight catching in his chest. The screen has the kind of definition that televisions on Earth could only dream about, making it look as if it were just a matter of reaching out and touching someone to be there with them, but -- well. He doesn't let his thoughts continue down that path, because there's no point to it.

"I heard you got into a bit of trouble the other day," Shiro says to Keith, his brow furrowing in concern. "Something about -- a bomb?"

"It wasn't a big deal," Keith says, wishing Kolivan would actually stick to his job of being a close-lipped secret spy leader instead of blabbing to Shiro every time Keith got hurt. "There was just a bit of shrapnel." 

"Not a big deal," Lance snorts, rolling his eyes. "You had to have like, ten stitches before you could get into the healing pod."

"How did you know about that?" Allura asks Lance, narrowing her eyes at him. He gives her a startled look, then looks sharply at Keith, panic visible in his gaze. Keith returns the look, because as far as anyone knows, they haven't spoken since the last group conversation more than two weeks ago.

"I sent him a message," Keith blurts, "By uh, accident. It was supposed to go to Shiro. I didn't notice until Lance responded."

"Ah," Allura says. There's something knowing in her eyes when she glances between him and Lance. With sudden clarity, Keith realizes that they had possibly underestimated how smart, and more importantly, nosy, the princess could be when it came to shipwide gossip. She always seemed to be on top of all of the secrets around the castle, and it was very possible she was close to discovering another one. Keith clears his throat, drawing her attention away from where she was side-eyeing Lance.

"Tell me more about how the building is going on Beta Revax? Kolivan mentioned things were going well."

"They  _are,_ " Allura says, instantly distracted and beaming. "With the Olkari helping out, they estimate that construction will be finished in less than a month!"

"We have some more planning to do, but Voltron is gonna try and run more missions to liberate other beings in neighboring solar systems while we work on this major attack," Shiro says. "We might need some data from you guys, actually, if you know more about where prisoners would be kept."

"Sure," Keith says, ignoring the pinprick of unhappiness at  _we_ so definitively not referring to  _him_ anymore. _That's how things work now,_ he reminds himself. _I'm not on the team anymore -- I'm a member of the Blade, now._ "I'll see if I can get Kolivan to share some info. The more people we free, the more we can spread the resistance across the universe."

"Exactly, my boy," Coran says, pointing a finger at him. "That's what I keep trying to tell them! We need to be pushing Voltron out there as much as possible!"

"Not again," Hunk mutters, while Pidge rolls her eyes so that only Keith can see. Lance locks eyes with Keith and grins, his smile a little lopsided. He's already told Keith all about Coran's excitement and -- overenthusiasm as their messaging manager. 

A beeping sound distracts him from the screen -- a notification that Kolivan and the team have returned from their mission. Debriefing would follow, as would a groupwide meeting to discuss their next movements. Keith had ten minutes. 

"Gotta go?" Lance asks, knowing full well what that sound meant by now.

"Unfortunately," Keith says. "Thanks again, though, for the box. I'll talk to you guys soon."

"Yep," Lance says, winking. "Talk to you soon."

"Take care, Keith!" Pidge says, echoed by Coran. 

"I'll send more stuff," Hunk tells him, "So don't worry about conserving what you've got. Actually, the expiration on them is kinda unknown considering I'm working with unknown variables, so maybe eat them as soon as possible."

"I will," Keith says, laughing. "Bye guys." Everyone waves goodbye, and Keith waves back; it's a strange feeling to be so heavy and so light all at once, like he's tipping on the edge of some imaginary scale back and forth.

When he hangs up, he takes a minute to gather himself, then stands up, pulling his hood over his head and leaving thoughts of Voltron and his old team behind.

 

.

 

"That was dumb, sorry."

"Don't worry about it, Lance. No one noticed."

"I think Allura did -- I think she can tell something is up with me to be honest."

"The mice telling gossip again?"

"I think it's Blue, actually. I feel like she's still connected to me, you know?"

"...yeah."

"Is it the same for you? With Red?"

"...I don't know, to be honest. When I was in Black, yeah, I could still feel her, but being so far away now..."

"Right."

"It's best if she just has you to focus on, though. I'm sure you take up enough space in her head."

" _Hey._ Are you calling me bigheaded?"

"Of course not."

"Sure, babe. Sure."

 

.

 

“So we’ll be meeting up soon, right?” Lance asks, eyes bright.

He's leaned forward in Red, hands almost idly resting on top of her controls. In the hull of a ship heading back to base (after a successful mission with no issues whatsoever, miraculously), Keith glances up at Kolivan, who’s talking to Shiro on another comm line, and then looks back at Lance.

“Pretty sure,” he says, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. He hasn’t felt this light in ages, but there’s something pleased tugging at his stomach, little flutters like it’s the first time he’s going to kiss Lance all over again.

It’s strange -- he’d known that he would be seeing Lance again, of course, but for some reason he hadn’t let himself believe that, like the knowledge would make it that much harder to not be with him. Letting himself accept that now, that he’s going to _be_ with Lance again, even if it’s only for a day or so, feels like -- sunshine, or reading a book on a rainy day under a blanket. Something safe and warm. “I don’t know if it’ll be before or after the battle they’ve been talking about, but Kolivan definitely said something about going over strategy together in person.”

“Yessssss,” Lance says, raising a fist slowly in the air and closing his eyes. Keith snorts, and Lance opens one eye, which is glinting with barely concealed glee. “Listen here, buddy, I hope you’re ready for me to basically become your personal baby sloth.”

“My _what?_ ” Keith asks, baffled. He’s a little too loud -- Kolivan glances his way and gives him a carefully blank look, and Keith schools his own face back into some semblance of seriousness. He waits until Kolivan is looking at his own screen again before he says, “What are you talking about?”

“You know, in the wild on Earth, baby sloths like, cling to their mother’s backs? That’s gonna be me, with you. Nonstop clinging. You’ll have to carry me everywhere. I don’t think I’m going to let go until they pry me off with a crowbar.”

“Lance,” Keith says, feeling his face flush as heat creeps over his ears. “If you do that, then everyone will definitely know.”

Lance’s eyes go a little sharper, his face a little more serious. Keith’s stomach squirms automatically in response to that expression, to those dark eyes. “Good,” Lance says firmly. “I think we should tell them.”

“Seriously?” Keith asks, blinking. The flush starts to fade from his cheeks. “You want to -- you want to tell everyone? Now?”

“Yeah,” Lance says. His voice is even, his eyes steady. It’s a direct contrast to how Keith’s heart trips unevenly in his chest, an unsteady drumbeat in his ears. “I think we should. I think -- I don’t want this to be a secret anymore, not when I can barely see you. I -- I keep feeling like I’ve got this weight on my chest, because I want to -- I want to talk about you to Hunk, or Allura, but I _can’t_.”

 _Why can’t talking to me be enough?_ Keith wonders, but he doesn’t say it out loud. He knows the answer, anyways, knows that it’s selfish to assume that Lance would want to share everything with him, all the time. They go days without speaking, they’ve fought and bickered and Keith knows the urge to share those feelings with someone else, understands the impulse. He’s had to stop himself from calling Shiro or Hunk a few times now. But--

“Keith, nothing’s gonna change once everyone knows, you know that, right?” Lance asks, brow furrowing. His voice is low and fervent, like he’s trying to make sure Keith is listening.

Keith swallows, eyes flicking up to Kolivan, where he can still hear Shiro’s voice, then back down to Lance. “Yeah, I know.” He makes an attempt at a smile.

“It’s just gonna make it easier on both of us because we won’t have to keep sneaking around. We can call each other at normal times -- we can hold hands when we get to see each other. I -- I wanna be able to kiss you hello, sweetheart,” Lance says softly. He’s smiling too, and the sight of it makes Keith’s stomach sink just a little lower. He looks...relieved. Happy.

Why can’t Keith feel that way too?

“You’re right,” Keith says, feeling as if there’s a distant ringing in his ears. His voice echoes weirdly, almost hollow. “We should -- it’s dumb to keep hiding it, when we have so many other things to think about. We can let them know when we meet back up again.”

“Good,” Lance says, sounding pleased. His eyes cut away from the screen, and he grimaces. “Ah, Allura’s calling me, I think we’re running some drills. Call me later tonight?”

“Sure,” Keith says, mouth quirking. Lance presses two fingers to his mouth, then to the screen; Keith copies him, holding his half-smile until Lance’s image fades offscreen and it turns black.

He stares at the space where Lance’s smile had been for a long moment, thoughts churning in his head. In the background, he can hear Shiro’s voice, a familiar steady tone. It used to calm him down, hearing that voice -- he’d lay in the shack in the desert and remember all of Shiro’s advice, repeating to himself all of the different things he could be, _should_ be doing instead of hiding out in a rickety old building, following the pull of some imaginary feeling in his gut.

_You’ve got what it takes to be better than that, Keith._

The last few months, from the moment Shiro had come back from the dead again, that voice had haunted him. Anxiety and worry had become a second skin, itchy and too tight and suffocating him slowly.

All of Shiro’s expectations for Keith, they’d been manageable until he’d disappeared the second time. When the Kerberos mission had happened, no one had really cared about it but Keith, and his choices and actions getting kicked out of the Garrison had been his own responsibility. But this time Keith hadn’t been alone in a desert, following hunches and dealing with his own insecurities -- he was part of a team in space, and suddenly the weight of Shiro’s expectations had been made real, placed on Keith’s shoulders unwanted and without ceremony.

Every time Keith feels like he’s starting to get -- comfortable, or like he’s in the right place, things get swept out from underneath him. At the Garrison, or on his own in the desert, or as the Red Paladin and then the Black Paladin, things had inevitably changed, and he was usually left off-kilter, the odd man out, and this just -- it wasn’t the same, he tries to tell himself it’s not the same at all. This is just him and Lance, and people he considers his family, and letting them know something that makes Keith _happy._

But. Lance was wrong. Keith knows better than most that things _do_ change, whether you want them to or not. And he’d just started getting comfortable again.

He tucks the tablet away, and closes his eyes, and tries not to let the same worries take over.

 

.

 

“God _damn_ you, work, you stupid--”

“--lo? _Hello?_ Oh my god, Keith, is that you?”

“Lance? _Fuck,_ I thought you were--”

“We were trapped on this planet, there was some kind of barrier but Allura got us out--”

“Are you okay--”

“I’m fine, we’re all fine for now, but Keith, there’s a bomb--”

“ _Shit_.”

“The planet is a huge bomb and we think the person controlling it is where you guys are, but we’re too far away, we won’t make it--”

“Shit, shit, _shit,_ I think I know where it is, but we can’t get through their shield, we’ve already lost three ships--”

“Keith--”

“Okay, okay, I just need to--”

“ _Keith._ ”

“ _What,_ Lance, what is it, we don’t have time to--”

“I love you, Keith.”

“...you--”

“If this is the last thing I can do before -- before -- then I wanted you to know that. I think you already knew, but -- I wanted to say it out loud.”

“Lance--”

“You don’t have to say it back, I’m not trying to--”

“Shut up, you _know_ I do, idiot--”

“--make you -- oh. Haha, romantic as usual, Kogane.”

“You know what I mean. I -- I do love you...I think I always have, ever since...”

“...yeah. Me too. God, I don’t -- I don’t want this to be the end, Keith. I still wanna go home, we had all those plans -- I want to see my _mami_ again and tell her all about you, show you that spot on the beach where we could be alone and just swim...we didn’t even get to tell the others. It’s not fair.”

“...”

“Keith?”

“It’s not over yet.”

“Keith, come on…”

“Just -- you’re gonna do all of that stuff, Lance, I promise. Promise me you’ll do that.”

“What are you talking about, Keith? What are you -- what are you doing?”

“I’m doing what I can -- what I’m supposed to do.”

“What? Wait -- Keith, _wait--_ ”

 

.

 

When Keith opens his eyes, he still has his fingers pressed to the screen, right over where Lance’s face had been. The bright red glow, the supernova of light he’d been flying into, is gone -- faded into nothing.

His heart is a dull ache in his chest, his skin covered in chills -- he’s shaking, he realizes, his entire body trembling and cold and damp with sweat. The shield is gone. He’s flying towards a ship with no defenses, and he’s still going to crash.

He pulls up the controls sharply, veering out of the way and spiraling towards safety as the ship is bombarded with fire from the other resistance pilots. He watches the explosions, the blossoming balls of fire, feeling as if he’s a thousand miles away from them.

A red light flashes on his screen -- Lance is trying to reach him.

Keith swallows. His stomach feels like it’s alive, or like it’s cement, or like it’s ash inside of him, disintegrating. All of those things at once. For some reason, he can feel the little pill sitting in its pocket on his shoulder, like it’s heavy -- like it’s weighing him down, pinning him in place.

Another red light on his screen -- Shiro. The rest of the team. Everyone is trying to reach him now, and he can’t put it off anymore. He answers the call.

“ _Keith!”_ Lance yells, sounding stricken. “Keith, please, are you--”

“I’m okay,” he says. His voice is a strangely hollow sound. “I’m fine.” Lance makes a strange noise, a choked gasp, but doesn’t say anything else.

“Good job, Keith,” Shiro says warmly. His voice, so proud, makes Keith let go of his controls, wrap his arms around himself and shiver He tilts a little to the left, then makes himself straighten up again. “The bomb has been disabled.”

“It wasn’t me,” Keith replies quietly. “Someone else destroyed the shield.”

“My brother says none of the resistance fighters know what’s going on,” Pidge says, sounding confused. “Who--”

“Did something happen--”

Keith mutes the channel but doesn’t close the call, waiting until the sounds of their voices stop before he lets himself breathe out. It sounds whispery, the rattle of air through an empty cage, and he struggles to draw in another breath. It makes him think of himself, telling Lance to breathe late at night, whispering nonsense to him over and over just to pretend he was helping.

“I’m not dead,” Keith says out loud to himself. He wants it to be firm, wants it to sound serious and objective and grounding. But instead he just sounds confused.

Death is not unfamiliar to him -- he knows it intimately at this point, all the different forms it could take, how heavy the weight of it could be, how quickly some could brush it aside and how it still lingered in his mind late at night. It was an inevitable fact for all of them; he should be used to the thought of it. Dying to save everyone else was the sort of death he thought he could be content with. The sort of death that felt _right._

Then why --

His throat is dry when he swallows. It aches a little, makes an audible click. It feels more real than anything else that he’s done since he opened his eyes again.

There’s another flashing light on his screen.

Lance is calling again, this time on a private line. Keith can tell the others are still talking, but no one seems to notice that he’s not saying anything -- except Lance, of course. Keith doesn’t know what to say to him. Everything feels suspended, his body held in a strange transition between _I’m going to die_ and...whatever came after not dying. He doesn’t think he feels _anything._ Maybe that’s worse. He can’t tell. His head is a mess of static and noise.

He doesn’t answer Lance’s call.

 

.

 

“I don’t trust him, Shiro, it’s _Lotor._ ”

“I know that, Princess, believe me, but he could have information that’s valuable to us. He _did_ just stop that ship from blowing up this galaxy.”

“Well I don’t know what he wants specifically, but he obviously wants to negotiate with us -- this has got to be a ploy. We can’t trust him.”

“Hunk is right. We should expect he’ll be trying to bargain for something, and that we won’t like it.”

“We need to clear this space, everyone. Reconvene at the castle, and we’ll meet with Prince Lotor there. I’ll send the coordinates to him, and keep the castle defenses on high. His ship might be strong, but Altean technology can still give him a wallop if he tries anything.”

“Sounds like that’s our only option. Voltron will be there soon, Coran. Keith, you should meet up with us too.”

“Keith?”

“...is he there?”

“Lance, did you get through to him?”

“...no.”

“Should we--”

“I’m here.”

“Keith? Everything okay, buddy?”

“Yeah, sorry, Shiro. I’ll be at the castle soon. See you guys then.”

“Alright. Nice work out there, Keith. See you soon.”

.

 

Keith steps out of his ship to find Lance already waiting for him. He should have known that he would be, but it still makes him pause, to see Lance standing with his arms crossed, leaned up against the entrance to the hangar, his eyes fixed on the ground. He’s already taken off his outer layer of armor, dressed only in the dark bodysuit that goes underneath. He looks...vulnerable.

Keith’s stomach twists a little tighter.

“Hey,” he says softly. Lance’s eyes flick up to him and hold, and his mouth goes tight at the edges.

“Hey,” he repeats. Keith can’t tell what kind of expression he’s wearing -- is he angry? Hurt? Confused? Keith can’t even grasp his own feelings, much less interpret Lance’s shifting emotions, visible in his dark eyes scanning Keith from top to bottom, like he’s looking for possible wounds.

Keith walks closer; it’s only when he gets close enough to Lance to smell the familiar scent of his lavender shampoo that it hits him: this is the first time they’ve seen each other in person in over a month. The sense memory overwhelms him -- the sweet smell that lingers in the collar of his jackets, in the pillowcase that Keith stole before he left and has slept with every night since. It makes something inside of him seize up, and he pulls to an abrupt halt, staring at Lance.

Lance stares back. Keith can see the same complicated feeling being worked through in those eyes, the longing and fear and worry and love that’s spilling out of him, threatening to choke him, and it makes him take a step back.

“Keith,” Lance says. His voice is quiet, threaded with unhappiness. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, without understanding why he’s even saying it. He feels like he’s going to cry, and he doesn’t want to, not in front of Lance, not when they’re supposed to be happily reuniting; the knowledge that he’s messing up again only makes it worse, though, and to his horror, a tear slips down his cheek, catching on the corner of his mouth. “Sorry,” he whispers again, roughly wiping it away.

“Sweetheart,” Lance says, his voice gentle. “Don’t apologize.” Lance takes a step closer, and Keith watches him approach, frozen in place, irrationally feeling as if a single movement in any direction might make him shatter. He doesn’t know why this is so _hard._

Lance, close enough now that Keith can feel the warmth of him, reaches out and puts a fingertip to Keith’s chin, tilting his head up just a little. “Are you okay?” His eyes are a piercing blue, pinning him in place.

“I’m fine,” Keith mutters. Lance’s touch against his skin is warm, and he shivers a little in response. Lance’s mouth quirks a little, a half-smile without humor.

“It’s just me, Keith,” Lance says quietly. “You don’t have to hide.”

Keith’s breath hitches, and he feels himself sway, just a little. It’s enough for him to tip forward, off balance, and land against Lance’s chest, burying his face against the dark fabric of his bodysuit. His eyes burn, but he doesn’t shed any more tears -- he just breathes, feeling Lance’s arms wrap around him and hold him close.

“It’s okay,” Lance murmurs. Keith can feel him settling his cheek against Keith’s hair, a hand pressed between his shoulder blades. He feels enveloped, surrounded entirely by Lance, the scent and touch and feel of him completely covering him. He feels like he can breathe again.

“I…” Keith can’t finish the sentence, unsure of what to say, but Lance just tightens his grip, holding him closer.

“I get it,” Lance tells him. “You don’t have to say it out loud.”

Keith swallows hard, pressing his mouth against the fabric over Lance’s throat and closing his eyes tightly. “I don’t know why I can’t handle this,” he whispers, quiet enough he can’t even hear himself speaking over the pounding of his heart.

Lance must hear him though, because the pressure against his hair shifts, and he pulls back a little, not letting him go but leaning enough away that they’re looking at each other face to face. His mouth is a thin line again, and his eyes are serious and dark.

“Listen. I should’ve said this before, but -- I never want to take your choices away from you, Keith. I never want to make you do anything you don’t want to do -- I don’t want to be another person pushing you into a role you didn’t choose. But I can’t keep ignoring how I feel and I just -- being with the Blade of Marmora, I don’t think it’s the best thing for you. I don’t think it’s where you belong.”

Keith stares at him. “What do you mean?”

Lance cups his hand against Keith’s jaw, his thumb running over his cheekbone, pressing against the spot where a divot usually shows when he grins. “You barely smile anymore, Keith.” His voice is thin and pained. “You get hurt all the time -- you risk your life basically every single day--”

“So do you,” Keith reminds him, brow furrowing. “And this way I’m -- I’m _doing_ something, Lance. I’m helping save people. You, you of all people should understand -- what about your story about that time on the beach--"

“You were saving people with us, Keith,” Lance interrupts sharply. “And if it meant that you were still with us all the time, I’d never touch one of those lions again. I’d rather be the one sitting on the sidelines than deal with worrying about you every single time I hang up one of our calls.”

“Lance,” Keith says, startled at how course his voice is.

Lance takes a shaky breath and then lets it out. “I’m so tired of being scared all the time, Keith.” He closes his eyes tightly. “I keep having dreams that one day I’ll get a call and it won’t be you, it’ll be Kolivan, telling me that you’ve been lost during a mission. I go to sleep not knowing whether or not you’ll still be there when I wake up.”

Keith’s stomach twists hard in his gut, and he reaches up to put a hand on Lance’s chest. It’s the fear he’s been carrying with him the whole time he’s been gone, realized at last; part of him had always known he was hurting Lance more than he was letting on, but he’d been too afraid to acknowledge it, to look that guilt in the eyes. He thought if he did, he might realize that the best thing for Lance would be -- would be to let him go, to stop tying him down to someone who had no real idea of what the future would hold.

And if he let Lance go, he -- he wasn’t sure what that would mean for him.

He can’t ignore the misery in Lance’s voice now though, the dark circles under his eyes. The way Lance’s arms are locked around him like he’s afraid Keith is going to disappear even now.  “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I know it’s not fair.”

“It doesn’t have to do with fair, Keith,” Lance says, opening his eyes again. “I should’ve said something a long time ago, that’s my mistake, but -- you don’t have to risk your life to help the cause, or to be important, or -- or whatever it is you think. I know what the Blade of Marmora do is important, I know they’re helping us, but Keith, you don’t have to _die_ for them.”

“We’re in a war, Lance,” Keith says. For a moment, the supernova of red light from that Galra ship blooms in his eyes. He can smell the stale scent of sweat on his brow, the sense memory of the screen, cold against his fingertips. Lance’s voice ringing in his ears. “People die.”

“Not you,” Lance says firmly. “I’m not losing you.” His voice is steady, unforgiving, and it makes something hot flare at the base of Keith’s throat.

“That’s not how this works,” Keith says. He stares at the hollow of Lance’s collarbones rather than meet his eyes, his throat tight. “People don’t get to pick and choose who lives and dies.”

“You were going to.”

Keith’s head jerks up, and he meets Lance’s gaze again; Lance’s eyes are not dark anymore -- they’re bright, damp at the corners, but he’s not crying either, just staring at Keith.

“You were going to die for us to live. The others didn’t realize what was going on but I knew, and you weren’t going to say anything.”

“There’s no point,” Keith mutters; there’s something clawing at the inside of his ribcage, some fluttery but painful sound just waiting to crawl out of him. There are still too many thoughts crowding his head for him to know what to say about what had almost happened, but this, at least, is easy -- there is no way he wants to deal with the others knowing about it. He presses his hand harder against Lance’s chest. “Don’t tell them, please.”

“Keith,” Lance murmurs. “I get it. I do, okay, I would die for them too. If I knew it would save you, I would die for you in a heartbeat.”

The thought of that happening has helpless panic rising in him, and his fist clenches in the fabric of Lance’s suit. It’s the same feeling that had overwhelmed him in the pilot’s seat of that ship, the same feeling that had turned him towards the impenetrable shield without a second thought.

Death could come for him all it wanted -- it could not come for Lance. He knows it’s hypocritical, he knows it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the _truth_ ; before he can say anything, though, Lance is speaking again, voice low and fervent.

“All I know is, when we were running from that bomb, and I thought I was going to die -- I -- I was thinking of my parents and my family, but even more than that, Keith, I was thinking that I was going to die without having seen you again. And I don’t want to ever -- I --” He chokes, and leans forward to press his forehead to Keith’s, his eyes closing tightly again. Keith can feel the heat of his breath on his cheek, the cool sweat on his brow. The scent of lavender is thick on his tongue.

“If we’re gonna risk our lives, Keith, I wanna do it together,” Lance says softly. “I don’t wanna keep missing you. I need you with me, at my side. That’s where you belong.”

Keith stares at him, feeling as if the words are physical blows against his body, hammering home into his lungs, his heart, his very being. It’s not a magic spell -- it doesn’t dissipate the anxious ache in his chest, it doesn’t stop all of the desperate thoughts in his head, but.

He feels something that’s felt loose within him for more than a month settle back into place.

He’s been searching for his place in the universe for so long, looking for the right things to do or say to make himself feel like he’s useful, like he’s doing _good_ , like he’s living up to his potential; like he has a real _home._ He’s come so close so many times now, but nothing has ever stuck, and that’s stung more than anything -- having it within reach but losing sight at the last second.

But nothing, _nothing_ \-- nothing feels more like where he’s meant to be than next to Lance. From their first kiss, the first smile, the first time Keith had dreamed of his eyes, the first time they’d met, he should have known that this was the answer he’d been looking for. It’s so simple.

He swallows hard, feeling foolish and relieved and afraid, then whispers, “Okay.”

Lance’s arms tighten around him, his eyes opening wide. “Really?”

Keith nods, feeling his face flush as a smile slowly curls Lance’s mouth, his happiness an almost tangible thing. “Yeah.” He cuts his eyes away, focusing somewhere over Lance’s shoulder, heat rising at the back of his neck. He _hates_ being so bad at this. “I -- I just wanna be with you, too. I’m tired of pretending otherwi--”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence because Lance uses the hand on his cheek to tilt his head up, kissing him on the mouth and smothering the words. This, at least, Keith knows how to do, so he winds his arms around Lance’s neck and pushes onto his toes, kissing Lance hard, chasing the taste of salt and lavender.

They stay that way for a long, long time, pressed tightly together, breathing each other’s air, clinging. It’s not the hour long kiss Lance promised him a few weeks ago -- they both get calls from Allura, demanding to know where they are, that they’re meeting with Lotor _now_ , and they both know there’s still a lot to be done before the day is over.

But it’s a good enough start, Keith thinks, winding his fingers through Lance’s as they walk out of the hangar. It’s the best homecoming he could have asked for.

 

.

 

“Lance, you know we don’t have to call each other in the middle of the night anymore.”

“Don’t you think it’s kinda cool, though? We’re not sneaking around anymore but we’re still like...secretive. It’s like the beeeest of both worlds. Openly dating but still hiding some stuff.”

“Did you -- did you just sing that song from that kid’s show?”

“You can say Hannah Montana, Keith, your reputation is safe with me.”

“Sometimes I don’t know why I’m openly dating you at all.”

“Because I’m hilarious and charming and brave and I have great legs. You’ve told me this.”

“You didn’t get it in writing, so it doesn’t count.”

“That’s not how the law works.”

“I must have missed you passing your bar exam, mister law expert. No, stop, I don’t wanna hear about Legally Blonde again. Did you forget something in my room earlier?”

“Nah, although I did see that about three of my missing jackets aren’t actually missing.”

“Oops.”

“You sound very repentant.”

“Lance.”

“I just wanted to talk to you again. That’s all.”

“You’re such a dork.”

“And yet -- you love me. You’ve said it many times, out loud. For other people to hear.”

“No one else has heard me say it, Lance.”

“Details, details. Can I hear it?”

“What?”

“Can you say it for me? And then we can go to sleep, promise.”

“...sure. I love you...sweetheart.”

“Oh my god, you called me sweetheart.”

“It felt weird, I don’t know why I did that--”

“No, it was cute! Do it again.”

“Lance, please.”

“Fine, fine. I love you too, _sweetheart_. Goodnight.”

.

 

The windows of the observatory of the castle are enormous, ceiling to floor glass with nothing to block the views, and they open on the dark expanse of space, thousands of pinpricks of stars embedded in the black sky. Keith leans his head against Lance’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of him pressed all along his back, and watches them burn a million miles away; looking at them, he realizes there’s something just as bright and heavy in his chest, something he keeps meaning to say, but he hasn’t been able to put it to words. It’s -- hard to get out.

He thinks he wants to try and be as brave as everyone seems to think he is, though.

“Lance,” he says, then breaks off to squirm when Lance buries his face between Keith’s neck and shoulder, humming inquisitively. “Stop that,” he says breathlessly, fighting off laughter at the touch against sensitive skin.

“You smell like me,” Lance murmurs, lips brushing curve of his shoulder. “My shampoo. I should let you steal my jackets more often.”

“Can you focus for a minute,” Keith says, feeling his face turning red and grateful that he’s facing the window and Lance can’t see him.

“Sure,” Lance agrees, lifting his head a little and pulling Keith back against him, arms held loosely around his waist. “What’s up?”

“I just -- I wanted to thank you, I guess,” Keith says quietly. He can feel Lance’s chest rising and falling behind him, so he knows when Lance suddenly holds his breath and goes still. “For -- everything. Letting me go and asking me to come back and -- being there, whenever I needed you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for loving you, Keith,” Lance says, pressing a kiss against the top of Keith’s ear; the shape of his lips leave a burning sensation behind, or maybe it’s just Keith’s ears heating.

“It’s more than that,” Keith says firmly, because he’s been thinking about this a lot. He gathers his nerves, and says, “I know that I’m not -- I’m not as good at knowing what to say, and I’m reckless and impulsive and I’m bad at pet names--”

“Keith--”

“--but you stayed with me anyways, in spite of all of the rational reasons to let go. And -- no one else has done that before.” Keith takes a deep breath, then twists a little in Lance’s arms to look at him. “You deserve someone better than me, but I’m not giving you up either. So I’m gonna hold on to you, too. I promise. I’m not gonna let go again.”

Lance stares at him for a long moment, eyes wide and surprised; the smile that slowly takes over his face is just as beautiful as the view outside, just as breathtakingly simple and bright.

“Okay,” he replies, pressing a kiss against Keith’s temple. It’s achingly gentle, sweet enough that Keith feels himself flush pink. “It’s a promise.”

“Okay,” Keith repeats, still blushing, and settles back against Lance. They arrange their limbs to be comfortable again, wrapped up in and around each other, and then go quietly back to looking out the windows, breathing deeply, watching the universe pass them by.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!! You can find me on tumblr at [apvrrish](http://apvrrish.tumblr.com) and on twitter at [@apvrrish](http://twitter.com/apvrrish).


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